BYGONE SUSSEX - online book

Essays, Sketches and Illustrations of bygone Sussex

A FAVOURITE excursion of those who run down to the seaside to consult " one of the best of physicians"—he whom Thackeray has well described as "kind, cheerful, merry Doctor Brighton "—is to the Devil's Dyke. To that picturesque spot with an evil name there come pilgrims by coach, by train, and on foot to gaze upon the wide expanding landscape of the Weald, to have their fortunes told by the gipsy "queens" who ply their trade in flagrant defiance of the statute book, or to disport themselves in the somewhat cockney paradise that has arisen on this lovely part of the South Downs. The Dyke itself is the work of Mother Nature in one of her sportive moods, when she seems to imitate or to anticipate the labours of man. Here she has carved out a deep trench that looks as though it were the work of the Anakim. It has its legendary interest also, for the Sussex peasantry hold, or held, that it came into existence by the exertions of the " Poor